Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, Lara first appeared in the Superman newspaper comic strip in 1939.

After constructing his Fortress of Solitude, Superman honored his deceased biological parents with a statue of Jor-El and Lara holding up a globe of Krypton.

A 1948 retelling of Superman's origin story[7] subsequently delved into detail about Lara, though her more familiar Silver Age aspects were established starting in the late 1950s and over the next several decades.

After the establishment of DC's multiverse in the early 1960s, the Golden Age version of Superman's mother was stated as having been named "Lora", and lived on the Krypton of Earth-Two.

A definitive synopsis of the Silver Age Lara's life (summarizing the various stories revealing her history) came in the 1979 miniseries The World of Krypton (not to be confused with the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths late 1980s comic special of the same name).

Early in Jor-El and Lara's marriage, the couple are briefly watched by the Guardians of the Universe, who note that they would have made an excellent Green Lantern.

Lara's grandmother, Lady Nara, and Seyg-El, Jor-El's father, were the ones who arranged the union between them – so that they might have a child who would fill an opening in the planet's Register of Citizens when another Kryptonian died a rare and untimely death.

Jor-El, however, was considered a "throwback" for actually expressing emotions toward his wife Lara, and for his favoring the less sterilized days of past Kryptonian eras.

In this version of the mythos, Lara was a librarian and historian of high rank and thought it horrifying that Kal-El would be sent to a "primitive" planet such as Earth.

In this version, Lara is treated as a fully equal partner to Jor-El in constructing Kal-El's spacecraft and in designing various key components.